It hasn’t been a bad year for reading. In 2018 I read about two books a month, and this year I managed a little over 2½. I’m a slow reader, unlike a friend of mine who can plough through 400 books a year and is, therefore, a freak. My goal for 2020 is to reach three books a month, and that’s all you’re getting, I’m not bloody Superman. It is kind of nice to reflect back on the year that’s been, though, instead of letting it all slip away. Here’s what happened and what was memorable in 2019.
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The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
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It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
People like to discuss the literary analogues to the current political situation, and in 2016 a lot of people were throwing around names like Nineteen Eighty-Four because that was the only political dystopia they knew. There are some far better ones. Top of my list has always been Ubu Roi, which is about a grotesquely fat, venal, selfish, crude, murderous bastard who manages to get himself made king of Poland and promptly runs the country into the ground. Sound familiar?
The other book about where we are now is It Can’t Happen Here, a novel from the 30s which imagines what it might look like if fascism were to succeed in the United States. It’s dated in some ways, but rings disturbingly accurate in others. Their Buzz Windrip is a demagogue who uses the exact same sort of rhetoric as Our Insect Overlord (“make America a proud, rich land again” — spooky, no?). But what also struck me is how similar everything else is too. Lewis mentions how the wave of anti-German sentiment from the First World War led people to rebrand sauerkraut as “liberty cabbage.” Compare that with the anti-French sentiment after 9-11 which led people to rebrand French fries as “freedom fries.” It would almost sound prophetic if Lewis weren’t describing the past. You don’t need to be prophetic if nothing ever changes — you just have to say what you see.
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The Gentleman by Forrest Leo
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Mind Hunter by John Douglas
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Doctor Who: Blood Harvest by Terrance Dicks
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Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
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Doctor Who: Evolution by John Peel
Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf… Don’t judge me, I needed some comfort food, all right?
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My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
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Red Dwarf: Better Than Life by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
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Valerie and Her Week of Wonders by Vítězslav Nezval
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The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver
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The Hunting Accident by David L. Carson & Landiz Blair
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Weak Messages Create Bad Situations by David Shrigley
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Gentlemen in Hades by Frederic Arnold Kummer
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The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
I still don’t understand this poem, but at least now I’ve read it all the way through.
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The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
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The Anything Box by Zenna Henderson
Henderson doesn’t get nearly enough credit for what she was — a pioneering writer of science fiction and a desperately needed female voice in the very male-dominated arena of 1950s pulp magazines. While men were writing very detached, emotionally stunted, man-child wish-fulfillment about SPACE CAPTAINS piloting their SPACE SHIPS into SPACE!, Henderson was writing very moving, down-to-earth, domestic science fiction about children, mothers, and teachers. She’s like the Shirley Jackson of science fiction.
Many science fiction and fantasy writers have had to be rediscovered and revived before they’ve been fully appreciated (I believe the Gormenghast books enjoyed a renaissance decades after the author’s death). Zenna Henderson is long overdue for her renaissance, but I have never stopped believing that her day will come.
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Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero by James Romm
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La Majstro kaj Margarita by Miĥail Bulgakov
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Noir by Christopher Moore
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Neologisme by Lorjak
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Circe by Madeleine Miller
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Osbulbaha and Other Poems by Robert D. Windes
A self-published book of poetry from New Orleans in 1891. Mostly complete crap, as you’d expect, but some of it is bad in a hilarious way. Windes actually interrupts the poem in a few places to address his critics and say, “Look, I know you’re not going to like this bit, but it’s my book so I’ll do what I want, fight me.” There were some rather nice turns of phrase in the miscellaneous poems towards the end, once Windes stops trying so hard to write epic poems about Native Americans.
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Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin
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Misery by Stephen King
I’ve always wanted to read a Stephen King book, and now I have. It was a great read, but Jesus it’s like 300 pages of torture porn. Nothing else happens except the main guy gets bits hacked off him. By the end of the book he’s starting to look like a head on a skateboard.
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Less by Andrew Sean Greer
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Doctor Who: Scratchman by Tom Baker
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The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson
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The Princess Bride by William Goldman
It’s a classic for a reason. Every page just shines with its own light. I never read it or saw the movie as a kid, so this isn’t nostalgia speaking — it’s just a great book. I have a friend who says that if she had to pick two books to save from the apocalypse, she’d save a John Irving novel for herself (I forget which one; they’re all the same), and she’d save The Princess Bride for everyone else.
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Last Suppers by Ty Treadwell & Michelle Vernon
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Morto de Artisto by Anna Löwenstein
Originala verko en Esperanto temanta pri aktoro en antikva Romo kiu enamikiĝas kun Nerono, la baldaŭa imperiestro. Löwenstein verkas tiel simple, bele, kaj direkte, ke oni havas neniun problemon kompreni ŝin, eĉ Esperantistaĉo kiel mi. Io ajn pri antkiva Romo interesegas min ekde mi aĝis nur dek-kvar jarojn, do tiu ĉi romano estis facila vendo, kaj Löwenstein traktas pri unu el la plej interesaj periodoj de la imperio. Fakte ŝi komencas preskaŭ precize kie I, Claudius finiĝas, do mi ricevas mian sekvan epizodon de antikva dramo! Kiam Prokulpio renkontas Neronon, tiu estas perfekte normala juna viro. Sed kiel Prokulpio eltenos sian amikecon kun Nerono kiam Nerono grade forlasos sian tenon al realeco kaj ekmurdos ĉiujn ĉirkaŭ sin?
La romano daŭras ĝis preskaŭ ses cent paĝoj, kaj mi ne povas eskapi la penson, ke la rakonto pliboniĝus se ĝi estus malpli longa. Löwenstein donas al ni multajn vidaĵojn de ĉiutaga vivo en la Roma mondo, sed multaj ne direkte taŭgas al la ĉefa rakonto aŭ la karakterizado kaj tial agas nur kiel vataĵo. Fakte la romano povus forigi du aŭ tri cent paĝojn kaj nur pliboniĝus rezulte.
Malgraŭ la longa daŭro tiu ĉi estas tre ĝuebla kaj bele verkita romano de lerta verkisto. Mi scias, ke Löwenstein havas alian romanon nomitan La Ŝtona Urbo, kiun me nun devas mendi.
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How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason
Great book. Great title. Pity they don’t go together. I think it must have been the work of an enterprising publicist to give this book a really punchy title and a jazzy cover that have precious little to do with what it’s about. I picked this up thinking I was going to get a YA romp, but actually this book is a political drama and a novel of manners. It kicks arse on that score, I promise, but I feel like there was a bad misfire on the part of the PR department. So let’s leave aside the misunderstanding that this is any kind of adventure novel and talk about what it really is.
For me the stand-out feature of this novel is Eason’s sparkling prose. Its acrobatics take you by surprise and gild the whole exprience with a unique wit. This sort of foundation is absolutely vital for a novel that is, otherwise, basically I, Claudius in space. This novel is about the machiavellian machinations of a regent usurping the throne of a prince and kidnapping a vizier. Rory, the up-and-coming princess who is trying to dislodge the naughty regent, makes this as much a novel of manners as anything else as she tries to navigate when and how to behave towards the people who are trying to manipulate her politically. This is all set against a backdrop of clever science-fiction/fantasy world-building that, while not strictly necessary, is a nice bit of narrative fireworks to reinvigorate the familiar story of a fight for the royal succession.
Once you realize what it is, Rory Thorne shines. The writing is delightfully smart and I could bask in Eason’s sense of humor all day long. I have no regrets about picking this up and neither should you.